I98 JOHN L. PRICER. 



that some special skill, not possessed by the foraging worker, is 

 required to extract it. 



I have frequently seen individuals of C. pennsylv aniens feeding 

 on an apple, and on one occasion saw them extract the juice 

 from a large stalk of pie-plant. This material was available to 

 them for some time during the season, but they helped them- 

 selves to it only once. I once saw a colony which lived in the 

 trunk of a large ash tree feeding on the pulp of a water-spout of 

 the tree. They had removed almost every particle of material 

 from within the bark for a distance of about a foot, so weakening 

 the sprout that it had bent over. This had been done within a 

 short time, for the leaves above the injury, although wilted, 

 were still green, and a few of the ants were yet working on it 

 when I saw them. 



These ants seem to possess great power of husbanding the 

 nutriment within their own bodies. I have kept colony 1, Table 

 IV., in the insectory since January, giving them no food but 

 sugar and water, and yet they have successfully brought to 

 maturity all or nearly all their larvae, their workers have laid 

 many eggs, and the colony is now, May 10, to all appearances, 

 as healthy as any under my care. The proteid food required for 

 the feeding of the larvae and for maturing the eggs must have 

 been in store in some form in the bodies of the workers. I have 

 also noticed, with respect to the colonies which I have collected 

 since the few warm days we had in March, that many of them 

 are much larger than any I saw in outdoor nests previous to that 

 time. Very few of these ants have even yet, May 10, been seen 

 out of the nest, and the food upon which the larvae have grown 

 must have been a surplus of that stored for the purposes of res- 

 piration during the winter. I have two colonies, viz., 16 and 12, 

 of Table III., to which I have given no food since April 6. 

 Colony 16 had been given the usual indoor fare since capture up 

 to the time mentioned above, and colony 12 was captured on the 

 day the experiment began. Both colonies are now, May 10, 

 apparently as healthy as any others that I have in confinement. 



This faculty adapts them admirably to the conditions of their 

 life, for gathering their food as they do, and being unable to store 

 it otherwise than in their bodies, there is likely to be consider- 





